View Full Version : Growing papaya, and overwintering in greenhouse
siege2050
09-13-2014, 12:52 AM
I bought a papaya tonight to try, cause I have never had one, I cant say I am too impressed, reminds me of watered down Cantelope lol, but I have a bunch of seeds, and have read papaya grow fast, and I want to use them as an ornamental, and if its necessary an annual. I also read they dont like to be transplanted, but I dont want to plant a seed in a huge tub if possible. What is the best way to do this, I will have to grow it in a greenhouse in the winter, in a large tub, but my greenhouse is about 12F tall at its highest point. Also if it is possible to grow in there, what height might I expect in the 1st year?:2738:
crazy banana
09-13-2014, 02:05 AM
What kind of Papaya did you buy? I am certainly not impressed with the Mexican varieties. The Hawaiian ones are a lot tastier, but many are GMO manipulated. You might be better off with a known hermaphrodite variety you like. The University of Hawaii sells seeds at a very reasonable price.
I have non-GMO Sunrise, Sunset and X -77/Waimanalo. All of those are supposed to be low bearing hermaphrodite plants, meaning that they hopefully will start to set fruit at around 4'.
I have put my seeds in just a 4"pot. They sprouted after about 10 days, grew to about 8" in about 8 weeks. Planted them in the ground, amended the soil with compost and added some mycorrhizae in the planting hole.Tried to take the entire plant out of the pot with all the soil and without disturbing any roots and it worked for me:
it seems that they grow even faster than my banana plants, because only 5 weeks later they are already 28" tall. I have put my unused CRW tomato cages around them, want them to grow as tall as possible before the winter, then just wrap the entire cage with frost cloth.
siege2050
09-13-2014, 02:41 AM
I think it was a Mexican variety, Maradol if I remember the label right. Glad to hear that it is possible to transplant. I am going to try to use a very smooth pot with no molded indentations of any kind. Hopefully, if I can get it out of the pot without the soil crumbling, it will be okay.
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